The cooking adventures of a Sydney couple whose enthusiasm often outweighs their ability

Poppa Wan’s BBQ Pork Roast

Sunday night is traditionally the night for a good hearty roast – relegated to the weekend, I suspect, because that’s when everyone has the time to do all the prep (not to mention the clean-up afterwards). Maybe it’s also because you can shove the damn thing in the oven and get on with doing whatever you want to do in your much-too-limited spare time.

Don’t get me wrong – a roast is great. But sometimes you want to step outside the lines just a little bit, and this particular roast is the one to do it with.

The recipe comes from Chinese restauranteur Papa Wan, who just happens to be the father of stylist (and new Target ambassador) Gok Wan. We first saw it done when Gok swapped frocks for woks in the BBC tv series Gok Cooks Chinese and have tried it a couple of times now, but are still working to get it just right.

Unfortunately this is the one recipe that neither appeared on the Channel 4 website associated with the show, or on Gok’s personal blog, so we had to watch the show a couple of times with one person in the lounge yelling instructions to the other in the kitchen. Yes I know, I know – I could simply buy the cookbook. But I’ve been on a strict no-cookbook diet for a while now; I have not one but two overloaded shelves of rarely-used cookbooks, bought in a rush of enthusiasm but then left to sit there gathering dust while I make something I saw in the SMH or Delicious or some other magazine I picked up because supermarket lines are the most boring places in the world.

I have to say that throwing this dish together this afternoon and fiddling around trying to get the marinade right has me questioning my wisdom in this regard. In fact the only thing stopping me from jumping on Amazon right now is trying to decide which of my existing cookbooks has to be winnowed out to make room. And thus, through indecision, is my weekly book budget saved.

This dish goes incredibly well with his green bean stir fry (the recipe for which you can find here). I personally don’t think anything else is necessary, but tonight we’re adding a potato gratin to use up some leftover bacon, the rind end of the parmesan and cocktail potatoes which I suspect are about a week away from sprouting new life.